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Abstract:

This paper explores the mapping of voice quality to affect,
for a synthesised tense ? lax voice continuum. Two questions
are of interest. Firstly, over such a continuum, do
listeners? attributions of affect change in a continuous or in
a more categorical way? Secondly, might discreetly
different affects emerge at different points in the continuum:
specifically, might a moderately tense voice cue happy?
Note that extremely tense does not appear to, but seems
rather to be associated with the affect angry. A continuum
of stimuli were synthesised ranging from a very tense
quality at one end to a very lax quality at the other.
Listeners rated their affective colouring in terms of the
pairs of affective attributes: stressed/relaxed, angry/content,
happy/sad, interested/bored, formal/intimate, and indignant/
apologetic. Results suggest that, for these voice qualities,
listeners? attribution of affect is essentially continuous.
Furthermore, moderate tension does not evoke happy.